- On Wednesday, William Juliano of The Captain's Blog pointed out the flaws in Jeff Passan's piece about the Yankees being poor developers of pitching in the last 5 years, and showed how they've actually been pretty good at it. I was hoping to touch on this today, but William beat me to it and said everything better than I could have.

This week's Friday Jam is "Hey Joe" by The Jimi Hendrix Experience, arguably the greatest song about the worst subject matter in the history of music. I read that the BBC had to apologize earlier this week for one of its stations playing this song after doing a news report on the Oscar Pistorius case. Pistorius is obviously a piece of garbage and there's nothing cool about murdering your significant other in cold blood, but let's get one thing straight. Nobody ever has to apologize for playing "Hey Joe" on the radio. Ever. That song is the biz and I sure as shit ain't apologizing for playing it now.

The last real roster battle in this year's camp is definitely the least exciting of all the battles, but is one that could have more importance than people realize. The left side of the Yankee infield is full of more health-related questions than answers thanks to A-Rod's hips, Jeter's ankle, and Youkilis' entire body. At the very least the Yankees are going to have to lean on their utility guy more in the first month of the season to give Jeter time to get into everyday game shape and to make sure that Youkilis doesn't get too worn down from playing every day. At most, the utility guy might have to step into an everyday role for a period of time if Jeter or Youkilis hit the DL. The Yankees have gotten by with average-at-best production from this spot in the last few years, but average-at-best might not cut it this season now that Eric Chavez has moved on. Without a real solid corner infield option, the utility infielder role will expand in 2013, and these are the fellas competing for the job.

Phil Hughes has been given a lot of different titles and descriptive identifiers in his professional career. From "can't miss" and "surefire" to "uncertain" and "inconsistent," he's pretty much run the gamut of labels given to top prospects in his still short Major League career. One thing he hasn't been called, however, is injury-prone, which comes as a bit of a surprise given his long track record of injuries, the latest of which could put him out of early spring action for a couple weeks.

(Click to enlarge. Courtesy of Baseball Prospectus)

Take a gander there. That's not a short list by any measure, basically one injury for every year Hughes has pitched in the Majors. For most guys, that's enough to get the label slapped on them after just 3 or 4 years, but Hughes has spent 6 pitching at the Major League level and has still yet to have his injury problems questioned as much as his offspeed pitch selection, fastball command, or future ceiling. How can that be?